Cox Cable rolls out a traffic management system designed to throttle content …

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It takes guts—or perhaps something a bit further down the anatomy—to wait until Comcast has been smacked down for singling out P2P, the Obama administration has come to power, and Democrat Michael Copps (temporarily) heads the FCC to roll out a new Internet traffic management system that delays only some kinds of content during moments of congestion.

But that's exactly what Cox Cable, the third largest cable system in the US, has just announced.

According to the announcement made Tuesday night, Cox will trial the system in Kansas and Arkansas first, expanding it to the rest of its territory later in the year if all goes well.

Here's how the company describes the new setup: "During the occasional times the network is congested, this new technology automatically ensures that all time-sensitive Internet traffic—such as web pages, voice calls, streaming videos and gaming—moves without delay. Less time-sensitive traffic, such as file uploads, peer-to-peer and Usenet newsgroups, may be delayed momentarily—but only when the local network is congested."

All traffic defaults into the "time sensitive" category, but Cox has decided on a set of uses that can be delayed. At the beginning of the trial, this list includes:

File Access (Bulk transfers of data such as FTP)

Network Storage (Bulk transfers of data for storage)

P2P (Peer to peer protocols)

Software Updates (Managed updates such as operating system updates)

Usenet (Newsgroup related)

When the network is not experiencing congestion, all traffic will flow without delay, no matter what its type; only during periods of congestion will some traffic be delayed. The system sounds quite a bit like Comcast's new system—with one huge distinction that could well land Cox in hot water at the FCC: Comcast looks only at each user's overall bandwidth usage of the last few minutes, while Cox singles out specific uses of the Internet for delay.

This would certainly seem to go against the tone of the recent FCC ruling against Comcast, which suggested that allowing ISPs to pick and choose what traffic would be throttled was a bad idea. Nevetheless, as Cox says on its site, "the technology and policies at work in this trial also factor in the guidance provided by the Federal Communications Commission."

The actual "Internet Policy Statement" adopted some years back by the FCC says only that:

Consumers are entitled to access the lawful Internet content of their choice

Consumers are entitled to run applications and use services of their choice, subject to the needs of law enforcement

Consumers are entitled to connect their choice of legal devices that do not harm the network

Consumers are entitled to competition among network providers, application and service providers, and content providers

All of these principles are subject to "reasonable network management."

If groups like Free Press (instrumental in the Comcast case) have anything to do with it, the FCC could well be dragged into another network management battle over the new policy.

Free Press policy director Ben Scott already fired off a statement saying, "The lesson we learned from the Comcast case is that we must be skeptical of any practice that comes between users and the Internet. As a general rule, we're concerned about any cable or phone company picking winners and losers online. These kinds of practices cut against the fundamental neutrality of the open Internet. We urge the FCC to subject this practice to close scrutiny and call on Cox to provide its customers with more technical details about exactly what it's doing."

Already anticipating the objections, Cox makes clear that "these congestion management techniques are not a replacement for upgrades to our network." In other words, it's not just "damn the cost of upgrades, let's just throttle like the Boston Strangler!"

Cox customers are asked to send their thoughts to coxmessage@cox.com, an e-mail address we are quite sure will soon get a workout.